Summer begins with a relentless and vengeful sun. Few other cyclists are out today; I guess they know better.

As I crane my neck to let the wind bring the slightest relief, I feel a psychic resonance with my primordial ancestors. I picture them sweating and surviving in the Serengeti, as I now sweat and survive on US Highway 36. This primal kinship with those who came before me stretches back from generation to generation, centuries stretching into millennia, fading into an endless and unfathomable past.

I turn on my smartwatch to check my heart rate and skip to the next song. Pulsating through my bone conductance headphones, Sabrina Carpenter sings about coffee or some shit.